Thursday, March 5, 2015

Tips on making a good YouTube video

In order of importance:

• Use a tripod or something that can hold your phone in place while you're filming;
• When filming with a modern mobile phone, always hold it sideways to avoid 'tall' vids;
• Make sure the aspect ratio matches the YouTube video box, which is 16:9;
• If video aspect ratio is different, then YouTube allows letterboxing;
• Avoid uploading videos in less than 360p; else they will look pixelated in the video box;

Audio

• Do not upload videos with low volume, because most other videos are louder, and so are video ads;
• Avoid excessive audio treble, otherwise 's' sounds are too loud, which might hurt ears;
• To minimize echo, set up an almost wall-height bookshelf full of books or stuff along at least one nearby wall. Keep it clean and dust-free.

Intro and end clips

• Intro clips should be short, at best up to 15 seconds (else boring);
• If intro has music, its volume should fade in from 0 or 25% to normal;
• End clips should always have lower volume than your video;

Text in video

• Do not use cursive fonts, they are hard to read;
• See if you can do without very thin fonts, as these can be hard to read on small displays or from a distance;
• Do not use too large text size, as that's hard to read, too. It's good only for a separate video thumbnail image;
• Try to avoid colouring each letter, because that is also hard to read;
• Consider text contours or text shadow or some translucent text background color if video content changes from light to dark at text position;

You

• You may look gorgeous, but if you have an important message, then keep your shirt on like Russ Marine (now Civilian) does, so that your listeners won't get distracted.

Other people

• Avoid publishing videos with your own or anyone else's children in them. They are not your dog or cat, and they need privacy, too, even if they don't yet understand what it means — Small children are unable to give consent, as they don't yet have the concept of public/private and what consent is.
• A child of school age can be taught these things, so they will eventually learn to understand, so they can make their own choices.
• There are times and places when publishing videos with children in them are necessary:

If you happen to document any kind of abuse with anyone anywhere, then be ready for the following: You need to have a device of insignificant cost, good recoding features, fast connection, and instant upload to a throwaway account for backup, because authorities are very keen on gatherng evidence.

Speech manners

• When talking,
avoid using words like "don't", "doesn't", "didn't", etc., because these can be misheard wrongly. Try instead "do not", "does not", "did not", and so on with 'could', 'should' and the like. Unless you want to be ambiguous on purpose.
• Do not confuse 'may', 'can', and 'might': Avoid "bad people may or can do something", as if you might be giving them permission, and use 'might' instead; whereas "really good people _can_ do something good."